In our May issue we had a Note and Comment on the case of two Jewish boys, Robert and Gerald Finlay, whose parents died in a Nazi Concentration Camp in 1944, who were baptised as Roman Catholics by a French R.C. foster-mother, and thereafter disappeared. Nuns and priests were arrested in connection with the affair. A friend from Edinburgh has kindly sent us a cutting from the Manchester Guardian, of June 6th, reporting the present stage of the case. The report is as follows and is indeed revealing:—
“Paris, June 5. The quarrel between Roman Catholic and Jewish ecclesiastics over the guardianship of the two small Jewish orphans, Robert and Gerald Finlay—adopted and baptised by a Catholic foster-mother—was resumed to-day with a long and severe declaration by the Grand Rabinat of France.
“The children are now in Spain and although French law has recognised the claim of their relatives in Israel to bring them up, religious personalities who helped to smuggle the children out of the country have so far declined to divulge their hiding place. The family and various Catholic and Jewish personalities have met and agreed in principle that the children should be brought up in an atmosphere of religious neutrality so that they could choose their own faith when they came of age. But continual assurances that they were about to return to France have so far not been fulfilled.
“The Jewish declaration complains that the highest authorities of the Church have failed to order ‘the kidnappers and their accomplices, among whom are priests and nuns,’ to return the children. The statement draws the attention of Jewish parents to the dangers to which it alleges their children are exposed. ‘No Jewish child is safe from a baptism secretly administered. No Jewish child even if baptised secretly is protected against the fanatical zeal of priests who can snatch them away from their families in order to preserve them in the Catholic faith.’
“The declaration protests against alleged ‘immunity of persons who are notoriously guilty.’ It concludes: ‘We consider it a sacred duty to pursue this action so that such practices, of which the Finlay affair is not the only example, should become inconceivable.’
“Cardinal Gerlier has personally taken charge of the negotiations with Spain for the children’s return, and he is expected to reply to this attack. His envoys are still in Spain but they say they have not succeeded in finding the missing children.”